On what accumulates without announcement
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”
Van Gogh wrote this while learning to draw badly, which is the context that keeps it from being a slogan. He was not describing a method he had proved. He was describing what it felt like to be years from anything good.
The difficulty with a series of small things is that none of them feels like part of a great one. That is not a flaw in the process. It is the process, seen from inside.